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[Diomedes]

Take an anvil. I didn't at fist and I wasn't able to trade one. When I restarted I noticed how much cheaper it was.

I don't think you need a dwarf with medic skills. But if you are on a map with a lot of wild animals or even mosters or you have hunter one will be very useful. Otherwise, not needed. Just get the most basic skills. I used to center around farming and making gem encrusted rock crafts I could trade for an anvil. Plus basis skills to make the stuff you need right away like doors and beds. And a weaponsmith.

Don't see much need for changes. Just take dwarves with the skills you need to start off.

[Kipi]

When selecting my embark location, I tend to check the following things:

Brook/River: As long as we are required to muddy the soil before putting farms around, the water source is required. Now, usually murky pools do the same thing, though if one has turned weather off from init.txt (as I do the get some more precious FPS and due lethal rain), one can't trust them.

One level of soil: In 40d I tend to find a site with two to four soil layers, two as minimum. This is because mining soil level is faster and first floor is usually dedicated to military and trading, so farms had to go to floor 2. Now, due the farming thing mentioned in brook/river section, I'm forced to muddy the floor anyway, so one layer of soil is enough.

Sand: Yes, you can import sand from traders, but they don't usually bring much, or at least in my experience, so you basically need sand layer to support heavy glass making. Personal opinion, though.

Aquifer: I usually turn aquifers off from raws, so those don't bother me. If, for some strange reason, I have to run a game with aquifers on, I tend to choose location without it. Though the requirement for muddy soil could justify me to embark with aquifer.

I don't usually bother with stone layers, though one with possibility (right now that means certain) for iron ore is plus.

For skills, I have begun prefer following composition:
Miner/Leader
Miner/Broker
Miner/Bookkeeper (will become arsenal noble when necessary, as both seems to use the same skill(s))
Miner/Sheriff
Miner/Military leader
Miner/Medical leader
Woodcutter/Farmer

The idea behind this setup is that all those miners will dig the layout of my fort, which usually takes time as many things must be completed fast enough. Those include area for farming, stockpiles (wood industry, trading goods industry, stone industry and metal industry) and related necessary workshops. Also area for housing, hospital, barracks, studies, grand dining room and personal dining rooms. The woodcutter/farmer cut trees to the point where first farm plot can be established.

Now, for items, the only requirements I have is enough food and booze to survive to the point when first immigrant wave arrives. As this usually happens very fast, I can get most things running quite soon. Until that, no brewing unless I desperately need. That's why enough booze.
Other than that, the specific selection of items doesn't matter, as you can create world with using parameters, and there you can change the amount of embarking points, thus making micromanaging unnecessary. Though because of that there is no reason to embark without at least one anvil. This is because traders don't always bring anvils anymore, or so I have seen. This is probably due the fact that traders don't come with wagons at the moment.

For animals, two war dogs (both male) and cat (male).

Lastly, this pretty much matter of opinion and how you want to run your fortress, but I usually embark with at least 20 small cut gems. When I have enough dwarves to support jewel industry (which is usually around 14 dwarves, which basically means right after first wave of migrants) I tend to begin encrusting either my trading goods or my furniture with gems.

[Karik]

Leader:  2 points in skill such as Appraisal, Negotiations, Judge of Intent, Communication Skills, and Organization and such.
3 Miners:  Maxed out mining and engraving skills
1 Grower/brewer:  Max in Growing and Brewing
1 Metalworker:  Maxed in weapon and armor crafting
1 Doctor:  2 Points in each of the doc skills.

Depending on how many embark points I decide to go with I tend to try and buy a small breeding pop of dogs (cannon fodder for future generations, plus source of food and the like if necessary), and cows (this is the food/body goods source, dogs are only backup).  And then besides a variety of seeds there is not much you need besides picks and the sort.  Depending on how many embark points you decide to start with you can either take component parts for weapons/picks (metals and coal), or just start out with what you need. 

[de5me7]

i used to almost always make sure there was a soil type on location. Now (at least for some ppls currently) irrigation is mandatory i dont care so much about soil. I tend to look for a site with some wood on the surface, some surface water - so i dont have to mess with cave critters to get irrigation going, and i often prefer mountains for their dorfiness.

in terms of skills the important ones are grower, miner, and doctor. Most of the others u can train up or now that migrants are totally inept import. Might be worth taking a trained warrior as i havent recieved any from migration yet.

as far as gear goes you will need either means to make or at least one pick and one axe. And then some food a booze, the rest is more perosnal preference. Id recommend taking some gypsum powder for casts if your unlikley to mine any out as trade caravans dont always stock it.

p.s. my grower only does growing 90% of the time his other skills/ jobs are usually appraiser/organiser  - broker/manager

[Tarran]

...
Edit: Points in engraving? That's one of the easiest (Even if not the quickest) skills to level due to having vast amounts of walls and floors that will need to be smoothed. I find it best to grab three early immigrants and have them start smoothing stone (All other jobs but burial and basic healthcare disabled). I'll need to check out the mining tip, though, as that might change my start a bit.

...Do you know how long it takes to engrave every bit of my fortress I want engraved? do you? it takes months, or even years.

[Psieye]

I prefer embarking somewhere with High Rain so murky pools refill fast. This way I don't need to rely on a brook or river (especially given fish are virtually non-existent in the current DF2010 release) for my irrigation, well and fishing (shells - fish may not exist but turtles certainly do). In fact, I make the odd choice of wanting a proficient fisherdwarf so I get larger stacks of turtles from those pools - I'm under the impression that water sources get depleted of things to catch by the number of times you do fishing jobs in them, not how many things you caught.

I always insist on proficient miners when I want miners - because I like having huge piles of stone to churn out stuff from. That and with the new abundance in veins and gems, you'd be having to destroy wealth to dig out your fortress in the earlygame if you have low skill miners. The woodcutter can be no-skilled to start with as that just affects how fast you cut down the trees, you still get your log afterwards. You don't need too much wood at the start so there's no time pressure (well, less than stone for masons).

And yes, I also bring an anvil, bit. coal, a few rocks and some bars to forge my axe and picks from. If I want some security, a military skilled dwarf and enough material to forge a basic steel weapon and shield. That's in addition to the 5 dogs I bring for war training - I'm not so big on free barrels as I insist on plenty of surface wood to start with (which the High Rain helps with). Same with free bags, I prefer getting my cloth industry up fast, especially now that we're guaranteed early immigrants in summer when pig tails start to grow.

[Boingboingsplat]

Play Now! actually gives you extremely competent dwarves now. I'm pretty sure their skills give you more points than you could ever hope to use in the first place. It includes a doctor who is Competent in all of the related skills; and he may even have skills in addition to that!

[Asra]

For people recommending taking stones, I'd say bring bauxite along before anything else.  You may not find it on your map and it can be useful for building magma-proof pumps, mechanisms, etc.  And I think it's the same price, isn't it?

Yup.

Actually Bauxite isn't even worth it anymore. Lots of other stones have had their temperature raised so that they too can become magma-proof.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Expedition leader: Proficient carpenter, novice appraiser/judge of intent/consoler/pacifier/leader. This guy gets an axe once I forge one, and starts deforesting.
Doctor: Adequate [all medical skills except crutch walking] - He gets my pick, once I forge it.
Farmer: Proficient grower/brewer.
Crafter: Proficient stonecrafter/gem setter. Gems are valuable. It's nice to start with someone who can put them to good use.
Builder: Proficient mason/mechanic.
Metalsmith: Proficient weaponsmith/armorsmith.
Metalsmith 2: Proficient blacksmith/metalcrafter. See note on gems; replace "gems" with "platinum bars."

30 of each booze
ANVIL:YES
two pieces of (insert pretty-colored stone here) to build some stuff like my forge, then to serve as my main entrance doors.
1 piece of (native copper/malachite)
1 piece of cassiterite
30 cave lobster
5 of each underground seed (EXCEPT rock nuts and dimple cup spawn)
All the rest of the points go towards bituminous coal; fuel's important!

Tear down wagon
Make Charcoal
Make Coke From Bituminous Coal
Make Coke From Bituminous Coal
Make Bronze Bars (use Ore)
Forge axe and pick
STRIKE THE EARTH!
Make Coke From Bituminous Coal /R

[Asmodeous]

I actually have started looking for Cold/Temperate climates that will freeze part of the year (especially cold), since the frozen water at the beginning will give you a chance to dig out the farming area up to the ice wall, then wall the farming area in so that when the late spring thaw comes it will flood the farm automatically for you.

That and it's just fun to deal with snow now that that consistently works (in 40d even in cold climes I never had cyclical seasons).

For my starting seven, I'm going to adjust my old methods of doing things, I used to just use 1 dwarf for all the noble positions, but now I plan to do:

1. Miner/Appraiser 5/2 (Broker)
2. Miner/Record Keeper 5/2 (Book keeper/Arsenal Dwarf)
3. Doctor 2/2/2/2/2 (All of 'em at 2, medical dwarf noble)
4. Woodcutter/Carpenter 2/5
5. Farmer/Brewer/Plant Gatherer 2/4/4
6. Leader/Axedwarf/Armor User/Shield Dwarf 5/1/2/2 (Militia Commander)
7. Furnace Operator/Metalsmith/Armorsmith/Weaponsmith  2/1/5/2

For my loadout for stuff, I'll have at least 2-4 dogs to begin a breeding program to try to breed in the toughest, strongest, and most agile mutts I can for hunting/wardogs, then:

25 of each booze.
15 plump helmets
15 (insert meat here)
15 turtle/lobster (variety, since they won't get the shells)
5 of every seed (except dimple cups or rock nuts, I can trade for those when they become applicable)
4 copper nuggets
1 coke
5 coal
10 blocks (probably pitchblende because I like uranium hehe) to start off a few buildings
some thread, some soap, some crutches, some buckets, and some plaster powder
1 anvil.


Then left over points will get spent on whatever I feel like spending them on.

So far it's working out for me.

Upon setting picks, the doctor gets temporarily upgraded to be a mason/architect. Builds a smelter. Make coke from all the coal. Bars from the copper. Forge 2 picks and 2 axes. During this time there's a food pile set up by where I intend to set picks, and the Farmer is gathering plants. Once it's all done, we dig in and the Fun begins.

[LemonFrosted]

Play Now! actually gives you extremely competent dwarves now. I'm pretty sure their skills give you more points than you could ever hope to use in the first place. It includes a doctor who is Competent in all of the related skills; and he may even have skills in addition to that!

Play Now! gives you a spread of just about every skill you could hope to use in the start of a Fortress, but it's still under budget compared to a custom embark. The only thing that's an advantage is the Doctor who has 24 spent skill points, compared to the normal 10. The rest of them are Novice at everything they do except the Adept Miner. Additionally starting with a Novice Negotiator means you'll have to provide those first couple caravans almost 100% profit.

When the wiki comes back up I'll get the exact numbers, I can't find the scrap of paper I wrote it all out on yesterday.

[Ashery]

...
Edit: Points in engraving? That's one of the easiest (Even if not the quickest) skills to level due to having vast amounts of walls and floors that will need to be smoothed. I find it best to grab three early immigrants and have them start smoothing stone (All other jobs but burial and basic healthcare disabled). I'll need to check out the mining tip, though, as that might change my start a bit.

...Do you know how long it takes to engrave every bit of my fortress I want engraved? do you? it takes months, or even years.

And it takes next to no input from you and doesn't produce mass amounts of no-quality goods that are a pain in the ass to trade off/atom smash/dump into magma. The same can be said for the bookkeeping skill.

[Tarran]

...
Edit: Points in engraving? That's one of the easiest (Even if not the quickest) skills to level due to having vast amounts of walls and floors that will need to be smoothed. I find it best to grab three early immigrants and have them start smoothing stone (All other jobs but burial and basic healthcare disabled). I'll need to check out the mining tip, though, as that might change my start a bit.

...Do you know how long it takes to engrave every bit of my fortress I want engraved? do you? it takes months, or even years.

And it takes next to no input from you and doesn't produce mass amounts of no-quality goods that are a pain in the ass to trade off/atom smash/dump into magma. The same can be said for the bookkeeping skill.

When you are like me, you want everything done now.

Really, If you were like me, every moment you see something not being done is a moment of agony, I've lost a lot of my patience lately, I have no idea why, but I have, so I want everything to go by as quick as it can.

[Mikkus5]

I think anywhere will do these days, as virtually everywhere has something of interest in. Just went with the flow in my first fortresses. A savage biome for the animal interest, and a brook and some trees to be on the safe side perhaps. For skill distribution, something along these lines

1. Doctor/Leader Dwarf. a few points in the apropriate skills (appraisal, suturing etc) and whatever's left in mining
2. Proficient Miner and Mason
3. Proficent Carpenter and Wood Cutter
4. Proficient Cook and Brewer
5. Proficient Grower and Herbalist (Handy to get some above ground farms set up if irrigation is taking a while)
6. Proficient Amorsmith and Weaponsmith
7. Profiient Mechanic and Novice and a variety of handy skills which don't deserve a specific dwarf (Building Design Animal Training etc)   

I bung everbody a copper pick at the beging to get things moving (except the grower and carpenter), and avoid ore if there is an until there any good at mining. 2 breeding pairs of dogs are useful for wardogs, due to the ineptitude of early military. I've never felt the need to buy the base materials of everying and make my picks, just take less food, farm early, and buy the picks. Save animals and weapons for later. Turn on stoncrafting for one of your dwarves, and churn out crafts or mechanisms for trading first time.

Generally works well, though the mason/miners always busy.

Oh, and forget medical equipment, its not to hard to make, and it's rather expensive, and if someone gets injured before the first caravan or resources have been gathered, you might as well give up the fortress as a bad job and start again. 

I originally got this from a guide on the wiki ages ago, but i don't think it's there anymore, so whoever did invent it please claim credit

[BigD145]

I actually have started looking for Cold/Temperate climates that will freeze part of the year (especially cold), since the frozen water at the beginning will give you a chance to dig out the farming area up to the ice wall, then wall the farming area in so that when the late spring thaw comes it will flood the farm automatically for you.

I did a couple embarks on cold/frigid ocean front property and regretted it. Once the thawing begins, your fps is likely to drop infinitely close to zero. A small bit of ocean, less than half of a 6x6 and only 2 z-levels deep, may take 10 minutes plus to thaw. I'll wait on the openGL optimization to continue those ones.